Magellan Strategies, a polling firm focused on Republican candidates and organizations, surveyed Governor Kasich’s plan to raise the severance tax on oil and gas drillers to fund a small income tax cut for Ohioans. The poll was commissioned by Opportunity Ohio, Matt Mayer’s (formerly of the Buckeye Institute) new free market think tank.

Democrats definitely do not like the plan. 65% of Democrats disagree with the plan, with Dem women disliking it more than any other group: nearly 70%.

But the unpopularity extends to Republicans as well. In total, only 38.3% of Republicans agree with Kasich’s plan. 22.2% disagree and 39.5% have no opinion. With independents: 39.5% disagree, 27.8% agree.

44% of respondents also said the plan would make it harder to attract energy companies to Ohio and 41.7% of respondents disapprove of Kasich’s job performance overall (40.7% approve). As Mayer points out in his press release about the poll results,, “Kasich suffers from a gender gap with more than a 20% difference in approval marks between Republican and Independent men and women.”

The poll also touched on some election match ups and found President Obama leading Romney by 2 points and Senator Sherrod Brown leading Josh Mandel by 7.

The topline results are available here and the crosstabs are available here

Related Stories

Those are some very leading questions. Any poll that shows a 45-42 Obama lead, but shows school levies failing 26-65, is a flawed poll.

http://plunderbund.com Joseph

I agree a few of the questions were leading – especially the one about taxes imposed on energy production (which is why I didn’t mention it). But I do think it’s worth discussing the fact that a Republican polling organization finds so few Republicans supporting a major policy decision of the current Republican administration.

Green Iris

that has to be a huge kick in the teeth. you are in big trouble when you can’t buy good news.